


Horizon: Phantom of Apollo

by WrestleCrazyGamer



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Man vs Future Technology, false information
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-26 06:47:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13230219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WrestleCrazyGamer/pseuds/WrestleCrazyGamer
Summary: The Apollo Mission ended in catastrophe... or did it...? Aloy's son gets a strange glove attached to his arm. This glove will cause chaos and destruction as a lie is brought to light.





	1. Prologue - The Signal

In the Nora villages a new generation has already begun regrowing the population. Aloy watched over them carefully, making sure they learned their respective talents properly. In the generation after, there was a problem child… belonging to Aloy herself, her son. Anything she did for him after he turned six seemed to agitate him for some reason. He’d get mad at other kids that said he was lucky being her son, that heroism is in his blood, that everyone’s expecting big things from him, and that they can’t wait until he runs the Proving. 

“Aloy, a moment?” Erend asked after her son rebuffed her attempt to make him smile once again.

“Yeah?” Aloy sighed with her hands on her hips.

“The kid’s never going to warm up to anyone like this. Everyone thinks he’s going to be a hero or a village chief by the time he’s ten. No one’s letting him decide what he wants to be.” Erend told her.

“No one’s forcing him to be anything.” Aloy scoffed.

“Not you maybe, but others? All this praise you get? All these expectations of him? It’s putting a ton of pressure on him to succeed. You’re his mother and he’s still learning. You need to establish that parental bond stating you’ll support him no matter what he wants to do.” Erend explained to her.

“So you’re saying I’m going about cheering him up wrong.” Aloy sighed.

“I wouldn’t go that far. You just need a nudge in the right direction.” he smiled.

“I can hunt Thunderjaws with ease, but I guess I’m still wet behind the ears with parenting.” Aloy smiled sheepishly.

“Aloy! Sol left the village!” a Nora woman exclaimed.

Aloy hadn’t run that fast in a long time. A search party was already looking but she refused to leave it to chance. Panic started setting in when she found a track to follow. He was headed right for where Scrappers were known to hang out. She got there and went white seeing a pit into an unknown abyss. One of his shoes was lying at the mouth. Aloy wasted no time and dropped in after him. She prayed he wasn’t dead. When the reached the bottom she found his other shoe and footprints in the sand.

“Sol!” she called out, but received no response.

She hurried through the underground ruin looking for him. She followed his tracks all the way to what looked to be a sealed door. The tracks stopped there, so he had to be behind it.

“Sol! Sol can you hear me?!” Aloy called pounding on the door.

“Mom, there’s all kinds of super cool stuff in here!” the boy called back from the other side of the door.

“Don’t touch anything, you hear me?! Open the door!” Aloy ordered.

“I don’t know how…” he bluntly stated.

“Great…” Aloy groaned scanning the area with her Focus spotting a hole in the ceiling of the room Sol is in.

“Are you mad…?” Sol asked.

“No, no, I’m not mad… just stay put… don’t touch anything.” Aloy answered looking for a way to that opening.

Aloy employed complex acrobatics to eventually ascend. She had to move rubble and squeeze through spaces, slowly but surely making her way there. She finally dropped down into the room only for Sol to be gone. She looked around seeing the door still locked and began tapping her foot.

“I’m going to count to five, and you had better come out before I reach that high…” Aloy announced.

She got silence and so she began to count turning her Focus on to look for him. When she got to four she gasped seeing him on the floor behind a table. She hurried to him and found a gauntlet of some kind bearing white and blue colors on his left hand. It was thick around his forearm, likely for protection. There was a strange ring apparatus with an eye of sorts over the top of the wrist.

“You idiot, I told you not to touch anything…” Aloy groaned looking for an easy way to get him out.

She managed to get him out and back to the village without being attacked thankfully, but Sol wouldn’t wake up. Two days passed and still he slumbered. Aloy was at a loss for what to do. She couldn’t even get the gauntlet she suspected as the cause off of him. She felt it was her fault this happened, that she didn’t do a good enough job as his mother. Aloy was scared he would’t wake up, or he’d hate her when he did. So many scenarios came to her mind to keep her up a night.

After a total five days of being unconscious Sol finally came to, but something was strange with his left eye. There were red characters seemingly engraved into his iris. He seemed very out of it looking around like he’d never been in his own home before.

“Sol, Sol please tell me that you’re okay…” Aloy sobbed hugging him tightly.

“Mom… I didn’t touch anything… honest… I was waiting like you said… something crawled on my arm so I smacked it… then I passed out… now I’m here…” Sol told her.

“All-Mother be praised… you gave us a real scare, Sol.” Teersa sighed with relief entering the room.

“Sol, can you get this glove off?” Aloy asked him.

Sol tugged and tugged but it refused to budge. On a twentieth attempt the wrist popped open showing red script between the two segments that circles around changing fast at insane speed. In a panic Sol closed it back up. He’d have to accept that it wasn’t coming off anytime soon. 

In the depths of space three ships were in wait as a terminal within the flagship began to beep and then read the same script that showed on Sol’s wrist. The terminal then began to sound an alarm turning the lights within all three ships on. The engines roared to life and the ships began to cruise through space. On the side of them… Apollo was written in bold letters. 


	2. New Machines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aloy's son is all grown up, and things are about to get real.

It was a chilly morning in the village. Aloy went to wake Sol for the Proving, but to her surprise he wasn’t in bed. He was outside sharpening arrowheads and making final preparations for the test to become a Brave. He’d grown into quite the hunter in his training. With help from Erend and Teersa she managed to form a stable mother and child relationship. She was confident he stood a good chance in the Proving.

“Sol, do you know what you’ll be claiming a trophy from in the proving this year?” Aloy asked him.

“This year we’ll be hunting Attack Type Machines. So I’m making sure I’ve got everything I need to bag the biggest one I can find.” Sol answered preparing tearblast arrows.

“Don’t go too big and take your time. A Scrapper should be good enough to secure a spot as a Brave, but it does no good if you go getting killed or worse.” Aloy warned him.

“I know, I know… don’t bite off more than I can chew.” Sol smiled over his shoulder.

“I mean it, use that head of yours while you’re out there. I won’t be there to bail you out this time.” Aloy told him.

“Come on, mom… it’s me we’re talking about. I would have had that Sawtooth if you didn’t jump in.” Sol chuckled putting his arrows in a quiver.

“I’ll argue until the machines go offline, you did not have that under control.” Aloy sighed shaking her head with a smile.

A horn then sounded for Sol to take off and join the other candidates. With advisory from Aloy, the Proving would be different this year. Rather than the first few becoming Braves, those who brought an impressive trophy would become Braves. The candidates’ time limit to get their trophy and return with it was sundown. Their only restriction aside from interfering with another’s hunt or trophy acquisition, personally instated by Aloy due to her experience in the Proving, was that they weren’t to leave the Embrace.

After a brief lecture on what it meant to be a Brave, the candidates were let loose. Sol set off for his usual prowling grounds where Scrappers liked to hang about. Something was wrong with the path on this particular day though. The Scrappers usually there were already busted apart by gunfire it seemed. There were footprints he didn’t recognize in the dirt headed off toward the nearby woods.

“I smell some abnormally big game…” Sol smirked before following the tracks.

He followed the path seeing dead machines and dead animals. Whatever was in the Embrace was not indigenous to wreak this much havoc. Once Sol reached the heavy woods he found broken arrows. This was without a doubt a very dangerous machine he was tracking. Using his training from Aloy he used the tall grass to remain as hidden as possible. He then heard gunfire and people crying out.

When he reached a clearing he finally saw the monster behind it. It had the body of a Wyvern and many gun attachments to its head, shoulders, and tail. A lot of its armor had been chipped away by arrows, which left plenty of vulnerable spots. At its feet were many deceased Nora Braves. Using the grass he snuck up on it scanning its movements for the most vulnerable spot to strike. It looked away exposing where its ammunition was being fed from in its neck giving him an idea. If he can jam its guns it’ll be a lot easier taking it out.

“Slow breaths… focus only on my target…” Sol thought to himself pulling back an arrow on his bow.

The eye of his glove began to glow making blue energy enter his arrow morphing the tip into a spiral shape with a blue hue to the metal. He loosed it and the newly shaped tip easily dug into the mark making it unleash a roar trying to open fire. The arrow caused the feed to get jammed and subsequently explode spilling rounds all over the ground. 

Sol seized the chance to fire arrows at its exposed synthetic muscles making it roar trying to fire at him but with no luck. It then resorted to charging and swinging its feet and tail at him. With clever arrow shots he slowly began immobilizing his quarry. It knocked a tree down with its tail making him roll out of the way. It leapt at him and he raised his gloved arm out of reflex and the eye generated an energy barrier knocking the machine on its back. He didn’t waste a beat and drew his spear to run it through its chest making it let out loud death rattles as oil and grease splattered out staining his clothing.

Sol was completely out of arrows, but he managed to fell the machine thanks to his glove. He used his spear to sever the neck from the torso managing to break his spear in the process. With the sun starting to go down he hurried dragging his trophy with him.

At Mother’s Heart everyone else had already returned with Scrapper trophies, Strider trophies, and Longleg trophies. Villagers at the gate gasped in shock as Sol lugged his trophy inside. His arms were sore from its weight but he managed to get it onto the altar with the others. He fell backward laughing with relief as it went dead silent around him.

“Why’s everyone look like they saw a ghost…?” Sol asked, barely able to sit up.

“You hunted this by yourself, Sol?” Teersa asked.

“Some Braves had tried to fell it before I got to it but ultimately lost their lives. I finished the job since it was a threat to the Nora.” he answered.

“I see it took literally everything you had to take it out even after those Braves wore it out.” Aloy smirked eyeing his broken spear and lack of arrows.

“My fellow Nora! The Winged Nightmare has been felled by one of our candidates in the stead of those who gave their lives to hunt it! The will of the fallen guided his bow to slay this fell beast!” Teersa announced rousing cheers from the villagers.

“I think we’d be idiots not to make you a Brave after this.” Aloy smile.

The night went by celebrating the new Braves. Sol took a much needed bath in the meantime. He’d have to repair his spear in the morning. Despite wanting to party with his fellow Braves, he was far too tired and went to bed early. It wasn’t birds chirping that awoke him from his sleep… but explosions.

He hurried outside and strange machines he’d never seen before were fighting the villagers. Rather than killing thought they seemed to be disabling foes and then searching for something. He grabbed a sword from the weapon smith’s stand and hurried to battle.   

“There’s no end to them!” one of the Braves cried.

A strong wind began bearing down on them as the machines seemed to back off. A large humanoid machine with large wing engines on its upper back and calves, phase cannons on its forearms, and claw blades on its hands then landed in the clearing. Everyone’s arrows were bouncing off it like toys.

“How hard is it to track down a damn SOS signal?! You Raptors are absolutely useless! Top of the line my ass!” the large machine roared.

“It talked…?” one of the Braves gasped.

“Ah, there it is… but it’s not attached to the one who should be wearing it… perhaps you killed her and took it for yourself?” the large machine spoke scanning Sol.

“What are you talking about…?” Sol asked.

“Enough talk… hand it over boy!” the machine roared thrusting an arm at him when an overridden Thunderjaw rammed into it knocking it through some houses.

“Sol, run!” Aloy called leaping down from a building.

“Mom?! Why’s it after me?!” Sol asked her.

“Stop asking questions and go!” Aloy ordered giving him a kick in the rear.

Sol was reluctant but managed to find the strength to flee from Mother’s Cradle. There were even more of those Raptors in the Embrace that tried to apprehend him on the way. A whole pack of overridden Scrappers covered him securing a safe path to escape in. He got to the gate leading outside the Embrace when…

“Not another step boy… not unless you want your precious mother to die like the savage she is…” the large machine’s voice spoke making him skid to a stop and turn around.

“Mom!” Sol exclaimed seeing Aloy unconscious and bleeding from the head in the machine’s right hand as it landed.

“Now then boy, let’s talk terms… you know how to trade, right? The glove for your dearest mother… what do you say?” the machine cackled.

“I assume that means you actually know how to get it off?” Sol asked.

“Not personally, but I do know someone who does… if we could remove it by just killing you we’d have done that by now. We wanted to be in, retrieve the glove, and be out.” the machine cackled.

“Vahs, you are acting without orders, stand down.” a woman’s voice spoke alerting Sol to a more feminine blue and gold machine very close to the other machine’s humanoid design floating in the air.

“What are you talking about? I found the source of the SOS on my own when you would have taken years following that AI’s orders.” Vahs complained.

“Results are not the issue here. We will return for the signal once we are ordered to. Leave the savages and return to base,  **now** .” the woman argued.

“Grr… you lucked out today, boy… but I’ll be back…” Vahs growled cruelly dropping Aloy to the ground.

After he took off with the other machine Sol hurried to his mother. He breathed a sigh of relief that she was still breathing. He carried her back to Mother’s Cradle so that she could be treated for her injuries. For two days Aloy remained unconscious as Sol thought about the impending return of those machines. They seemed to be completely impenetrable. Even when an arrow or spear connected with what should be a weak spot they bounce off like it’s solid metal. 

At sunrise on the third day Sol was packing his quivers and sharpening the sword he wound up purchasing from the blacksmith to replace his spear. With everything set he set out from Mother’s Cradle with a single goal in mind. He’d take the fight to those machines and go down fighting if it was him they were after. He arrived at the gate to the Embrace to find the Nora guarding it were recovering from a harsh battle with a Raptor swarm themselves. He could easily get by with things in this state. 

“Sol! Wait up!” a voice called as he crossed the bridge.

The voice could only belong to the tan-skinned Crystal, one of the other Brave candidates that ran the Proving with him. She’d brought back an entire pack of Scrapper trophies, due to moving to collect her trophy too soon. She specialized in setting traps and tripwires for machines and animals alike. Sol’s known her since they were little but wouldn’t call her a friend necessarily, he considers her a welcome acquaintance if anything. 

“You’re out of breath.” Sol pointed out.

“You’re going after… those machines right? I’m going with you. You can’t take them on alone.” Crystal told him trying to catch her breath.

“You can only set traps though.” Sol pointed out.

“I have a bow and spear too, I’m not an idiot.” Crystal argued.

“You know these aren’t ordinary machines I’m going after.” Sol told her.

“It’s still dangerous to go alone. There are Sawtooths, Snapmaws, Ravagers, and all kinds of other machines out there.” Crystal quipped.

“You’re not leaving in other words.” Sol sighed shaking his head.

“Either way you need to stop in Meridian right? I know some people there that can hook us up with some protective gear.” Crystal smiled.

“You’ve been to Meridian?” Sol asked.

“My mom is a trader, remember? When your dad has wall duty and your mom needs to make deliveries you gotta pick one situation over the other. I always chose to go with my mom. You learn things watching experienced traders do business. Quite a few owe me one or two in Meridian, so I’ll just make them honor their word.” Crystal answered.

“If you insist. Certainly makes the trip less lonely.” Sol sighed looking at the road ahead.

 

** End of Chapter Machine Report **

Name: Wyvern

Weak Point(s): Ammo veins, wing engines, artillery on its snout and body.

Description: A machine to put the Stormbird to shame. This machine uses multiple firearms as well as its sharp claws and teeth to rip prey to bits. It's origins are unknown as it only began showing up a few short years ago.

 

Name: Raptor

Weak Point(s): Eye socket, Chillwater pouch on stomach.

Description: A machine designed for tracking for attacking as a group. Far more deadly than any Watcher could hope to be. Raptors come in packs of six and higher with great aptitude for teamwork.

 

Name: Vahs

Weak Point(s): ???

Description: A large humanoid machine literally armed to the teeth donning red and grey colors. Even Tearblast Arrows don’t have any effect on his hard body. The only one to stop his attack was another machine that seemed to be his superior.


End file.
